Love Like Hate, page 12
The objective, then as now, as ever, was not just to survive, but to outlast your enemies and your comrades, to witness death, to mourn, even, at least a little, with true feeling, before you yourself went under.
The head warden was a pissy guy with an enormous dried prune for a head. His grinning charges were always bringing him gifts, all sorts of foodstuffs, packs of cigarettes, articles of clothing, even an original poem once or twice, but no one had ever presented him with a jar of fermented shrimp paste. Rotating it in his right hand, the warden remembered the odd gleam in Hoang Long’s eyes and thought: This maggot is fucking with me. He’s giving me a stinky jar of fermented shrimp paste as a way of saying, You stink! Well, if I stink this bad, I’ll make sure he rots in prison.
That evening, the warden’s wife discovered the money hidden inside the fermented shrimp paste. She smoothed out the creases and counted it twice. From every bill, of every denomination, Uncle Ho’s face smiled back at her approvingly. A nice round sum, she sighed, her face suddenly angelic. Instead of showing it to her husband, she kept it for herself. There were so many things she needed to buy and he never gave her enough money.
Respecting her husband’s job, the warden’s wife understood that the puppet troops needed to be reeducated to function in a socialist society, but she still worried about some of the things he did to them. To atone for his sins, she had decided to become a vegetarian, abstaining even from milk and eggs. To make up for these deprivations, however, she bought handbags and clothes compulsively. It is not easy being a warden’s wife.
21 GOING HOME
The head warden called Hoang Long to his office. “I have a surprise for you, Hoang Long. You’re released.”
Hoang Long stared at the dried prune for signs of a practical joke but saw nothing. The man was apparently serious. Not wanting to risk changing the head warden’s mind, he asked no questions, but mumbled in his most humble voice, “I thank you, sir.”
“You’ve made good progress and that’s why I’m releasing you. You used to be a real asshole, but you’ve changed. After you gave me that shrimp paste, I thought, Is this asshole fucking with me? Were you fucking with me, Hoang Long?”
“No, sir. I would never dare.”
“Of course not. You’d never dare because you’ve been reeducated. You’re a socialist citizen now. I’ve cured the assholeness out of you. It took a while, but I’ve cured you.”
“I thank you, sir.”
“And you should. You’re one of the toughest rehab cases I’ve ever had. I should have just shot you a few years ago, buried you in an unmarked grave, turned you into horseshit. I really should have.”
“I’m glad you didn’t, sir.”
“So am I, actually. You’re living proof that even an extreme asshole can be rehabilitated. But enough of this chattering! Here’s a train ticket to Saigon. If you hop on the truck waiting by the gate, you can catch the overnight train and be with your wife and son by tomorrow morning.”
“Tomorrow morning?!”
“Yes, tomorrow morning. I didn’t like that exclamation in your voice just now. Are you being sarcastic with me? I’m putting you on the express train, Hoang Long. After all these years, you still refuse to give this government, and socialism, enough credit,” he shook his head, frowning, sending shivers up Hoang Long’s spine. The prisoner was ready to kneel down and beg. “Now get out of here before I change my mind.”
“I thank you, sir!”
The truck took Hoang Long and a handful of other released inmates to Phu Ly station. There they boarded a local train for Hanoi. By midnight, they were on the express heading toward Saigon. No one complained about having to sit on hard benches in a third-class carriage. Pumped by the shift in their fortunes, they stayed up all night to chatter or simply to stare at their compartment, steal an anguished glance at a dozing female nearby, or gaze out the windows at a darkened landscape enlivened sporadically by dim orange lights. It was as if they were afraid to fall asleep, wake up and find themselves back in prison. Each passing mile brought them closer to home. Once they saw and heard a series of explosions on a hillside, accompanied by tracer bullets and the unmistakable pop-pops of small arms fire. They exchanged confused, excited looks. “Is it us?” someone asked, but no one knew the answer.
Suddenly a sleeping girl opened her eyes and caught Hoang Long staring at her. Instead of becoming angry, she actually smiled at him, her face radiant and serene, seemingly relieved, as if she had mistaken him for a lover or, even more improbably, had just been dreaming about him. Whether intentional or accidental, this intimacy between them lasted but a few seconds, for she lapsed into sleep again, a development that caused Hoang Long to feel a maudlin, abject pain filled with inexplicable regret. Dawn broke as they entered the suburbs of their beloved city. Heating up slowly, the pale sunlight angled in on their brightened faces. All the old buildings looked exactly the same. Nothing had changed. They saw slim girls in white ao dais riding their bicycles to school. At numerous sidewalk cafés, men drank coffee and smoked. The train lumbered into the station. They got off, walked outside and saw that the clock tower over Ben Thanh Market had become colossal in the intervening years. They couldn’t remember it ever looking that grand. Upon parting, the men promised to get together soon for a proper celebration.
From his cyclo, Hoang Long could see the sign for the Kim Long Café coming into view. The painted golden dragon was as gaudy as ever. The almond tree stood leafy. Everything looked exactly the same. If Kim Lan had remarried, if she had lied to him, then he would find out now. Walking in, he saw her serving a customer, the antiwar idiot, what’s-his-name. His wife looked gorgeous, even from behind. He sneaked up and hugged her suddenly, startling her into screaming in a voice at least an octave too low, “What the fuck, Hoang Long! Are you trying to fuck me up the ass again?!”
He opened his eyes to find his arms wrapped around Tung, his hard-on sprung against the other prisoner’s back, his new blanket draped against his ankles. All around him, dozens of men lay shivering under burlap sacks. The cold was inhuman.
22 A CYCLO RIDE
After visiting Hoang Long, Kim Lan and Cun returned to Hanoi. With two more days to go, they were content to be tourists. Hanoi was like another country to them. From the station, they took a cyclo to the center of town and found a cheap hotel. A frowning man greeted them at the reception desk, his morose self framed by a string of dead Christmas lights and two dozen postcards. A room was available on the fourth floor that cost forty thousand a night.
“How about sixty thousand for two nights?” Kim Lan shot back at him.
“Take it or leave it, lady. We have plenty of customers here, classy ones from Australia and Japan. I’m giving you the Vietnamese rate. With foreigners, I charge double.”
They discovered the room was fairly clean and the bed plenty wide for two people. Inspecting the yellow ocher blanket and threadbare, grayish sheet with suspicion, Kim Lan wondered if they had been changed since the departure of the previous guests, if ever. Neither had been in a hotel before so they did not know what to expect. They were pleasantly surprised to find a low fridge squatting in a corner, with even a bottle of spring water inside it. We’re inching up to international standards, they thought simultaneously, grinning with pride. The bathroom did look and smell moldy, with a showerhead aligned almost directly over the toilet, but it was still more luxurious and cleaner than at home.
While his mom freshened up, Cun stood at the window and stared down at the mossy red tiles of Hanoi’s old quarters. Labyrinthine, with thirty-six streets with names like Sugar, Hat, Tin, Chicken, Paper, Cotton, Coffin, Leather and Bucket. Originally, each street had featured a single commodity sold by merchants who came from the same village. Granted narrow slots on the sidewalk to display their wares, they built long tube-like houses behind them that were broken up by one or two courtyards. A tube house rarely had a second floor, and never a second-floor window facing the street. It was forbidden to look down at the king’s head should he pass by. As many as twenty families lived in each tube house. You could picture them as indoor alleys. Alleys were designed for the human body, not horses or automobiles. So unconsensually intimate, so pungent, they would alarm most contemporary sensibilities.
Wandering the streets around their hotel, Kim Lan and Cun noticed that the people in Hanoi were dressed more carefully—more formally, in a certain respect—than those in Saigon. Most men wore shoes, not sandals or flip-flops. The women’s dress looked more considered with their scarves and gloves. In spite of all that, Hanoians still seemed provincial, almost quaint, with no real sense of fashion. They only dressed more carefully, Kim Lan concluded, because of the weather.
Some older people in Hanoi still had black, lacquered teeth. Traditionally, white teeth were considered ugly, a sign of poverty and likened to the teeth of dogs. Kim Lan noticed that many men smoked a very strong tobacco called thuoc lao from bamboo water pipes. Thuoc lao gave you a better high than weed, but the buzz only lasted for about five minutes. There is a poem about thuoc lao:
Thuoc Lao improves one’s general character,
Rids one of diseases, makes one’s breath fragrant.
One must lift the pipe like a warrior his sword, Suck in deeply like a steam engine moving,
Then blow it out like phoenixes and dragons ascending
Older women chewed betel leaves with lime paste and areca nuts. Turning their mouths and teeth bright red, this mixture also got them high. Everyone drank fresh green tea with every meal.
Hanoi was even dirtier than Saigon, yet more pleasant, thanks to its parks and lakes. The food was uneven but there were also unmatched delicacies. Two dishes from the end of the nineteenth century had come to define Hanoi: pho and cha ca la vong. The name pho derives from the French pot au feu, or pot on the fire. Beef broth made the two dishes similar, but the Vietnamese eliminated the potatoes, carrots, celeries, leeks and parsnips, and added rice noodles, cilantro, slivers of onion, ginger, star anise, fennel seed, cassia, cinnamon and mint leaves. Pho had become a fast food, ready to be served for breakfast, lunch or dinner. By contrast, cha ca la vong was much fancier. Slivers of fish were marinated with galingale, turmeric, sesame, pepper and fish sauce, then fried in seasoned oil on a clay brazier at the table. The best fish for this dish was found at the confluence of two rivers in the town of Viet Tri. The swirling currents forced the fish to swim vigorously, firming its flesh. A male fish was preferred because it had more flesh. Cha ca la vong was served with peanuts, dill, scallions, chopped fennel, shredded lettuce, basil and cilantro, on top of rice vermicelli. The dipping sauce was fermented shrimp paste freshened with lime juice and sharpened by rice wine. True connoisseurs also added two pungent drops—exact, squeezed from an eyedropper—extracted from the gland of a beetle. Sesame rice crackers were also needed to add crunch to the meal. Cun wanted to try cha ca la vong but Kim Lan said to him angrily, “Your father is starving in the next town and you want to eat like a gourmet?!” They ended up settling for two simple bowls of pho a day.
Kim Lan knew of only one Hanoi landmark: the One-Pillar Pagoda. Single-chambered, it was tiny and perched on a stone pillar in the middle of a lotus pond. An enduring symbol of Hanoi, it was first constructed by King Ly Thai Tong in 1049 and rebuilt many times, the last in 1958 after Catholic Vietnamese troops under French command had it dynamited before the French quit Indochina. Tired of walking around, Kim Lan and Cun decided to take a cyclo to the One-Pillar Pagoda.
Cyclos in Hanoi were wider than the ones in Saigon. This allowed two thin-assed people to sit side by side fairly comfortably, with the smaller of the two leaning his or her head against the upper arm of the other, purring in abject contentment. Hanoi cyclos were also equipped with tinkling bells, like ice cream trucks. The wider cyclo was harder to steer but less prone to flopping on its side. Kim Lan flagged a white-haired, goateed man wearing crazed bifocals. Being so old, he always underquoted the prices to avoid losing customers.
“How much to the One-Pillar Pagoda?” Kim Lan asked him.
“Five thousand, lady.”
“What?! Five thousand?! Are you mad? One thousand!”
With a crestfallen look, the old man moaned, “Four thousand, lady, please. I can hardly eat on what I make a day.”
The sentimental card, Kim Lan thought with irritation. Though she had no idea how far the One-Pillar Pagoda was, she was sure she was being swindled. What the hell, I can afford a little charity.
After Kim Lan and Cun had gotten on, it became clear that the old man had trouble pedaling two people. This was fine with Kim Lan, however, because she didn’t want to go too fast. Grunting along slower than walking pace, they labored down a wide boulevard toward a monstrous block of granite silhouetted against the sky. This grim edifice was like nothing else in Hanoi.
“What is that?!” Cun barked at the old man.
“Uncle Ho’s Mausoleum!”
“I told you to go to the One-Pillar Pagoda,” Kim Lan said.
“It’s where I’m taking you. The One-Pillar Pagoda is right behind Uncle’s Mausoleum.”
“Turn around! Turn around!” Kim Lan commanded. “Please take us right back to our hotel.”
The One-Pillar Pagoda complex had included a monastery and a shrine dedicated to illustrious monks from centuries past. Both had been destroyed in 1985 to make room for a Ho Chi Minh Museum, which now stood in the shadow of the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum.
23 THE AWAKENING
After Hanoi, Saigon felt very chaotic, insane, terribly exciting. As Kim Lan and Cun entered Paris by Night, Sen emerged from the back of the room to give his wife a big hug, the first time he had ever allowed himself to show such affection in public. “Look at these teenagers in love!” someone shouted, which made everyone laugh.
“How was Phan Thiet?”
“It was fine, but I’m exhausted. I had to talk to so many people.”
“Were there a lot of people at the funeral?”
“Nearly a hundred.”
“How was Phan Thiet, Cun?”
“The beach was very beautiful.”
“Did you swim?”
“No, I did not swim.”
“I hear they have the whitest sand in Phan Thiet. Is that true?”
Cun grinned, but did not respond.
“He doesn’t know his beaches,” Kim Lan interjected. “White sand, black sand, it’s all the same to him. Isn’t that right, Cun?”
“Well, I’m very happy to see both of you back,” Sen said. “I was getting very lonely.”
A-Muoi brought Hoa into the room. Seeing her mother, Hoa was so happy she burst into tears. Kim Lan took Hoa from A-Muoi’s arms. “So you missed your mother, did you?”
“She cried the whole time you were gone,” Sen said with a touch of reproach. “But look at her now! Look at how happy she is!”
Sen’s effusive behavior continued later on that night—in bed. Heretofore their sex life had been OK yet unvaried, with the only weirdness her penchant for sucking his nipples. While enjoying each other’s bodily warmth, they had generated no white heat. As soon as the light was out, he started to kiss and undress her. She had never seen him like this before. He went on to make love to her with surprising finesse and shocking ardor. Nudging her breasts upward, he swallowed them whole and playfully sucked on her erect nipples with his tongue. He probed each one of her holes with fingers and nose and drove his engorged cazzo into her tight culo. He serviced, enslaved and manhandled her. “Stop, stop,” she pleaded, “the servants can hear us.” But Sen would not stop. To her dismay and ecstasy, he orally pleasured her down below. Turning her inside out, he overcharged and gouged her until her mind short-circuited as the room exploded with a million flashlights. Her eyes swiveling inward, her throaty screams reverberated throughout the house and onto the street. In the next room, Cun heard everything and spilled his seed at about the same time Sen did.
After Sen was done remaking her and she lay beside him serene and happy, it made Kim Lan blush to think that it had taken her forty-two years, two husbands and two childbirths to arrive at this point. Thinking of the man in prison, she felt pity sharpened by shame. She immediately chased the annoying thought away by mounting Sen in his sleep.
24 AMAZEMENT
On the train Cun had discovered his dick in dramatic fashion. Now he was ready to become a man. Already he could count three dim strands of hair jutting from his upper lip. His calcium-deficient jaw had never achieved its proper width, however, forcing his mouth to trumpet forward into a snout, while his eyes stayed stuck to the sides of his head, like an herbivore, ready to be hunted by a big cat that would devour his entrails and thighs, leaving his neck and feet to the slobbering, glazed-eyed hyenas. In fact, his face couldn’t be seen from the front at all, but only in profile, like a knife or an ax. Deprived of all dairy products in early infancy, he had had to be breast-fed an extra-long time, until there were a dozen nubby teeth crowding his puckering blowhole, encouraging it to shoot out even further. Even a well-timed Manny Pacquiao left would not have fixed it. Though his balls never dropped, it didn’t matter; Cun was ready to become a man. He started to scan left and right for glimpses of smackable flesh. He studied the servant girl as she squatted on the floor washing the dishes. When she took a shower, he stood outside the door and listened to the splashing, gurgling music. He heard the red plastic ladle being whacked against the nicked rim of the red plastic bucket. He heard her rubber flip-flops plop-plopping on the wet ceramic tiles and strained hard to parse and understand the complicated audio of her cheap panties being washed and wrung. Made in Vietnam, 100 percent polyester, their one advantage was the fact that they could be dried in the sun in no time flat. He sniffled with emotion when he heard her long, languorous sigh. Why do we deny each other our lovely bodies, my friend? Cun was amazed that all that separated him from transcendental experience was a thin plastic door, a very artificial thing, almost an abstraction. With the metal latch loosely screwed into rotting wood, it wouldn’t take more than a light shove for it to swing open. A strong blow from a fable pig would do it. The bathroom took up one corner of the kitchen, its walls falling well short of the tall ceiling. Cun figured he could stand on a chair and look down without being detected. As he was carrying a chair to the bathroom door one day, his mother walked in. “What are you doing with that chair?”
